The Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield. Katherine Mansfield
later, they went into his room to go through his things. They had discussed it quite calmly. It was even down on Josephine's list of things to be done. "Go through father's things and settle about them." But that was a very different matter from saying after breakfast:
"Well, are you ready, Con?"
"Yes, Jug—when you are."
"Then I think we'd better get it over."
It was dark in the hall. It had been a rule for years never to disturb father in the morning, whatever happened. And now they were going to open the door without knocking even... Constantia's eyes were enormous at the idea; Josephine felt weak in the knees.
"You—you go first," she gasped, pushing Constantia.
But Constantia said, as she always had said on those occasions, "No, Jug, that's not fair. You're the eldest."
Josephine was just going to say—what at other times she wouldn't have owned to for the world—what she kept for her very last weapon, "But you're the tallest," when they noticed that the kitchen door was open, and there stood Kate...
"Very stiff," said Josephine, grasping the doorhandle and doing her best to turn it. As if anything ever deceived Kate!
It couldn't be helped. That girl was... Then the door was shut behind them, but—but they weren't in father's room at all. They might have suddenly walked through the wall by mistake into a different flat altogether. Was the door just behind them? They were too frightened to look. Josephine knew that if it was it was holding itself tight shut; Constantia felt that, like the doors in dreams, it hadn't any handle at all. It was the coldness which made it so awful. Or the whiteness—which? Everything was covered. The blinds were down, a cloth hung over the mirror, a sheet hid the bed; a huge fan of white paper filled the fireplace. Constantia timidly put out her hand; she almost expected a snowflake to fall. Josephine felt a queer tingling in her nose, as if her nose was freezing. Then a cab klop-klopped over the cobbles below, and the quiet seemed to shake into little pieces.
"I had better pull up a blind," said Josephine bravely.
"Yes, it might be a good idea," whispered Constantia.
They only gave the blind a touch, but it flew up and the cord flew after, rolling round the blind-stick, and the little tassel tapped as if trying to get free. That was too much for Constantia.
"Don't you think—don't you think we might put it off for another day?" she whispered.
"Why?" snapped Josephine, feeling, as usual, much better now that she knew for certain that Constantia was terrified. "It's got to be done. But I do wish you wouldn't whisper, Con."
"I didn't know I was whispering," whispered Constantia.
"And why do you keep staring at the bed?" said Josephine, raising her voice almost defiantly. "There's nothing on the bed."
"Oh, Jug, don't say so!" said poor Connie. "At any rate, not so loudly."
Josephine felt herself that she had gone too far. She took a wide swerve over to the chest of drawers, put out her hand, but quickly drew it back again.
"Connie!" she gasped, and she wheeled round and leaned with her back against the chest of drawers.
"Oh, Jug—what?"
Josephine could only glare. She had the most extraordinary feeling that she had just escaped something simply awful. But how could she explain to Constantia that father was in the chest of drawers? He was in the top drawer with his handkerchiefs and neckties, or in the next with his shirts and pyjamas, or in the lowest of all with his suits. He was watching there, hidden away—just behind the door-handle—ready to spring.
She pulled a funny old-fashioned face at Constantia, just as she used to in the old days when she was going to cry.
"I can't open," she nearly wailed.
"No, don't, Jug," whispered Constantia earnestly. "It's much better not to. Don't let's open anything. At any rate, not for a long time."
"But—but it seems so weak," said Josephine, breaking down.
"But why not be weak for once, Jug?" argued Constantia, whispering quite fiercely. "If it is weak." And her pale stare flew from the locked writing-table—so safe—to the huge glittering wardrobe, and she began to breathe in a queer, panting away. "Why shouldn't we be weak for once in our lives, Jug? It's quite excusable. Let's be weak—be weak, Jug. It's much nicer to be weak than to be strong."
And then she did one of those amazingly bold things that she'd done about twice before in their lives: she marched over to the wardrobe, turned the key, and took it out of the lock. Took it out of the lock and held it up to Josephine, showing Josephine by her extraordinary smile that she knew what she'd done—she'd risked deliberately father being in there among his overcoats.
If the huge wardrobe had lurched forward, had crashed down on Constantia, Josephine wouldn't have been surprised. On the contrary, she would have thought it the only suitable thing to happen. But nothing happened. Only the room seemed quieter than ever, and the bigger flakes of cold air fell on Josephine's shoulders and knees. She began to shiver.
"Come, Jug," said Constantia, still with that awful callous smile, and Josephine followed just as she had that last time, when Constantia had pushed Benny into the round pond.
CHAPTER VII.
BUT the strain told on them when they were back in the dining-room. They sat down, very shaky, and looked at each other.
"I don't feel I can settle to anything," said Josephine, "until I've had something. Do you think we could ask Kate for two cups of hot water?"
"I really don't see why we shouldn't," said Constantia carefully. She was quite normal again. "I won't ring. I'll go to the kitchen door and ask her."
"Yes, do," said Josephine, sinking down into a chair. "Tell her, just two cups, Con, nothing else—on a tray."
"She needn't even put the jug on, need she?" said Constantia, as though Kate might very well complain if the jug had been there.
"Oh no, certainly not! The jug's not at all necessary. She can pour it direct out of the kettle," cried Josephine, feeling that would be a labour-saving indeed.
Their cold lips quivered at the greenish brims. Josephine curved her small red hands round the cup; Constantia sat up and blew on the wavy steam, making it flutter from one side to the other.
"Speaking of Benny," said Josephine.
And though Benny hadn't been mentioned Constantia immediately looked as though he had.
"He'll expect us to send him something of father's, of course. But it's so difficult to know what to send to Ceylon."
"You mean things get unstuck so on the voyage," murmured Constantia.
"No, lost," said Josephine sharply. "You know there's no post. Only runners."
Both paused to watch a black man in white linen drawers running through the pale fields for dear life, with a large brown-paper parcel in his hands. Josephine's black man was tiny; he scurried along glistening like an ant. But there was something blind and tireless about Constantia's tall, thin fellow, which made him, she decided, a very unpleasant person indeed... On the veranda, dressed all in white and wearing a cork helmet, stood Benny. His right hand shook up and down, as father's did when he was impatient. And behind him, not in the least interested, sat Hilda, the unknown sister-in-law. She swung in a cane rocker and flicked over the leaves of the "Tatler."
"I think his watch would be the most suitable present," said Josephine.
Constantia looked up; she seemed surprised.
"Oh, would you trust a gold watch to a native?"
"But of course, I'd disguise it," said Josephine. "No one would know it was a